


reflective

by Werepirechick



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Dimension Travel, Dreams, Gen, Inktober, Past Injury, Prompt Fic, Psychic Abilities, Scars, Sort Of, god 2012 april's powers were so wasted, goofy kid siblings having a semi-serious conversation about bad dreams, i like them as the younger bros, my gaaaaals......, so this was a good chance to write mike and leo interactions, their relationship feels like they'd confide in each other about stuff like this, this has a sequel fic now!, through ~dreaming~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-07-25 08:02:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16193432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: Leo is staring at a ceiling that’s unfamiliar. It doesn’t have the cracks and stains his room has, and the mattress he lies on is all wrong. The dip in its center from use by someone born with a shell- it doesn’t fit him. Like it’s meant for someone else, and he’s laid down where they’re supposed to be.He sits up carefully, feeling- off. Looking around the bedroom makes him feel floaty and dizzy, disconnected from his own body as he takes in the clutter and possessions surrounding the bed. It’s frustratingly hard to maneuver his legs off the bed to put his feet on the floor. At which point, Leo realizes he’s not alone in the bedroom.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *adds this to my pile of Let's Hyper Focus On 2012 Leo Being Fucked Up fics*
> 
> i don't even like 2012 leo all that much, idk why i always end up writing about him. uh, anyway, this fic is for a discord inktober prompt list. i combined Dreams and Scars together, because i'm predictable as shit like that.

Leo is staring at a ceiling that’s unfamiliar. It doesn’t have the cracks and stains his room has, and the mattress he lies on is all wrong. The dip in its center from use by someone born with a shell- it doesn’t fit him. Like it’s meant for someone else, and he’s laid down where they’re supposed to be.

He sits up carefully, feeling- off. Looking around the bedroom makes him feel floaty and dizzy, disconnected from his own body as he takes in the clutter and possessions surrounding the bed. It’s frustratingly hard to maneuver his legs off the bed to put his feet on the floor. At which point, Leo realizes he’s not alone in the bedroom.

There’s someone with their back to him- with their _shell_ to him. They’re a mutant turtle, just like Leo, but… they’re not any of his brothers. He doesn’t recognize them.

Leo opens his mouth to speak- _who are you, where am I, what’s going on?-_ but can’t seem to get any sound to come out. The words he meant to say slip out of his grasp, wisp like as his head swirls. He tries to stand, taking effort just to tense his legs to do so- and then suddenly he’s upright, time skipping between him sitting down and actually standing up.

Leo barely takes a step forwards before he finally sees what the other mutant is looking at. There’s a full length mirror on the wall, and the reflections in it make him stop cold.

The mutant turtle has a blue mask, like Leo, but- they look completely different otherwise. The other turtle is broader, darker in coloration. Where Leo has bright stripes and sharp angles, this turtle has none. Just dark scales, rounder edges, and-

Scars. Dozens of them, _everywhere._

Leo meets the blue eyes of the turtle looking into the mirror. The stranger doesn’t seem to see him, not even blinking at having Leo appear in his room, and- the other turtle turns his body, looking towards the bed without seeing Leo.

Leo’s breath catches. The damage to the unfamiliar turtle is worse than he’d thought. Scars ring his neck, plastron healed unevenly where those scars dip across his chest. But- his right leg is worse. Long, deep slashes crisscross the knee, the epicenter of the damage covered by a kneepad but still obvious. The scales there are discolored with scar tissue, old now, but once an injury so dire Leo feels sick to imagine it.

Leo can’t move before the scarred turtle walks towards him. He feels weirdly calm as he steps aside, letting the turtle pick up swords on the perfectly made bed Leo had been sleeping on. He doesn’t feel the need to question why the bed is suddenly so neat and tidy or where the swords came from. Leo just watches as the grimly silent turtle slides the twin katana over his shell, seeing the tremor in his hands and unwillingness in his slow movements.

The door abruptly opens, startling both of them. Leo is surprised, and yet not, by the appearance of another mutant turtle. This one with an orange mask, eyes a brighter blue, and only half the scars the first turtle has.

“-!” says the newcomer, voice lost in the ringing that’s starting to fill Leo’s hearing. He thinks he reads _patrol_ from the turtle’s silently moving mouth, but misses everything else. But- the orange of his mask, the blue of the first turtle’s, why do they have those colors, _his family’s colors_ -

“-” replies the scarred turtle, and the other one leaves, the door remaining open as he does and exposing only darkness Leo can’t see into outside. Leo’s ears are starting to hurt, the ringing getting louder.

 _“Who are you?”_ he tries to ask, but he can’t even hear himself anymore, he can’t tell if he actually spoke or not.

The scarred turtle still doesn’t see Leo. He just stands there, taking in a visibly shaky breath, and closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, Leo watches as the exhausted resignation of the turtle intensifies, almost to the point his whole expression cracks and becomes something painful to look at- and then it all fades away, the turtle blinking slowly, expression now carefully calm and forced into tranquility.

It scares Leo, for some reason. It unnerves him, unsettles him.

Then, the overwhelming pressure of the ringing intensifies, and Leo can only grasp at the sides of his skull as the scarred turtle marches forwards out of his room and into the darkness- -

 

 

 

Leo opens his eyes to his own room. He blinks for a while, coming back to awareness. Slowly, he relaxes his tensed muscles, breathing out a sigh.

He rolls onto his other side, feeling for a stuffed animal that’s got to be somewhere nearby. His fingers find the soft, worn fabric of his old unicorn stuffy, and he draws it under the blankets to his chest. Leo feels- rattled. A little disturbed. The comfort of his favorite toy from younger years eases some of the leftover, confusing stress, but Leo still stares at his wall, unable to sleep again just yet.

What a weird dream.

 

 

 

“Freaky,” is Mikey’s first comment, once Leo’s explained his dream.

“Definitely,” Leo agrees. “ _Catch,”_ he adds, tossing the rubber ball he and Mikey are playing with. It rebounds off the tunnel wall, hitting the walkway, and then bouncing up towards Mikey. His brother catches it easily, flicking it onto the back of his hand and twisting so the red ball rolls along his arm and shoulders.

“Wonder where you got the fodder for a dream like that,” Mikey muses, flicking the ball into the air with his other hand as it completes its journey. He grabs it as it falls and shoots it at the wall, bouncing it Leo again. “Watch anything like it, lately? I’ve had some weird dreams after watching really intense Adventure Time eps.”

Leo catches the rubber ball, and shakes his head. “Nope. The last thing I watched was a How It’s Made binge with Donnie, and I didn’t see a single conveyor belt anywhere.”

“Huh. Extra freaky.”

“Yeah.”

“So it was just us in the dream? No Raph or Don or dad?”

“Dunno, I never saw outside the room.”

“Did you try an’ leave?”

“Kinda? It was like moving through molasses.”

“Grody.”

“It really was. Also dizzying.”

“Super weird, but also all very intriguing. Think you’d be up to repeating whatever you did yesterday down to the smallest detail so you’ll have the dream again? I wanna know more about bizzaro us.”

Leo spins the rubber ball on his finger, and thinks of the dream Mikey, with an older face and a dozen visible scars. Thinks of his own dream self, who’d seemed like he’d been stitched back together more than once, and had eyes like he was so deeply tired he was dying from it.

“Yeah, no. You can have your own weird dreams; I’m done with whatever the hell mine was supposed to be.”

“Aw, c’mon, Leo.”

“Nope.”

“Please?”

“Still no. _Think fast.”_

Mikey yelps as the ball nearly gets him between the eyes, catching it between his palms at the last second. Leo laughs and dodges the revenge throw Mikey aims in return, scooping the ball up as it bounces against the floor and chucking it back at his brother.

They toss the ball between each other for a while without talking; progressively getting faster and more creative. Eventually a shot Leo makes goes wild, and Mikey has to compensate for the trajectory by leaping up onto the pipes of the tunnel’s ceiling. Leo’s younger brother catches the errant bouncy ball with his foot, gipping the pipes with his other three limbs.

“Sorry, my bad!” Leo says, jogging over.

“No big deal,” Mikey replies, transferring the ball into his hands and swinging down to hang by his feet. Leo takes the ball, looking up at the thick pipes Mikey is holding onto. He considers an idea that’s forming in his mind.

“You wanna make this more interesting?” Leo asks, grinning.

Predictably, Mikey does. They take the game to a new level and goof around on the pipes until someone falls. Throwing the ball at each other and catching it with a different limb every time. The exhilaration of climbing upside down on the pipes and catching and throwing a projectile at high speeds- it fully distracts them both from the grim dream. By the time Mikey’s right hand and foot both grasp a slick pipe and slip off, Leo has practically forgotten he ever had the dream at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April is standing in a room she doesn’t recognize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i held the very first request night on my [discord server](https://discord.gg/PBqStWv) recently, and one of my pals requested i do another of these!
> 
> have some april + april interaction.

April is standing in a room she doesn’t recognize.

It’s big, and decorated the way some bits of the brothers’ home is, except- here, it’s everywhere. The room is worn at the edges; the rugs across its stone floor frayed and stained, divots and dents in the concrete walls. Racks of deadly looking weapons cover one side ceiling to floor and a shrine is in the far corner. Incense slowly wafts from its shelves, and April can’t quite see whose picture is set on the altar.

There are other framed portraits on the walls, but their images are blurred to her. April can barely make out the vague figures in each one, and she raises a heavy feeling hand to take off her glasses, wiping them carefully on the hem of her shirt. The portraits are no clearer as she places them back on her face- in fact, the room itself seems to get blurrier around the edges.

April’s head pulses faintly, something like a migraine pushing at her temples. It makes thinking difficult- what thoughts she manages are confusion of where she is, and… how exactly she got here in the first place. There’s a strange sleepy calmness to that confusion.

Something catches her attention out of the corner of her eye. April feels as though her movements are sluggish as she turns, eyes looking to a figure in the room.

A girl- no, actually, a young woman is sitting with her legs crossed. Her eyes are shut, a few strands of red hair falling over them. April is fairly certain the woman is meditating, and her brows furrow as she spots a sword across the small of the woman’s back, an accessory to the formfitting black body armor she has.

April has a bad feeling about this- it has the vibe of whatever that magical underground city and its inhabitants are, possibly that _Big Mama_ person the brothers told her about- and she cautiously opens her mouth to ask just what the hell is going on.

Nothing comes out.

The woman’s eyes snap open anyway.

April starts backwards, unnerved by the lack of pupils or irises in the woman’s eyes. And yet, she knows they’re staring right at her- the sensation of something looking _into her_ suddenly making her chest seize breathlessly.

The woman’s red hair lifts weightlessly, drifting into the air as a faint white glow starts in her sclera. She raises a hand, and with a twist of her wrist, April is yanked off the ground and suspended in free air.

April gasps- soundless and mute- finding her body frozen through by whatever power has her right now. She can only move her eyes, shooting a terrified look at the woman as she rises, hand still outstretched as she approaches.

“I don’t take kindly to people waltzing around my psyche like they own it,” the woman says in a low voice, hard lines in her face. They’re as deep as the scars April notices, now that they’re closer together. The marring of the woman’s skin is worse down her arms, as numerous as the freckles that also trail across those limbs and her face.

April doesn’t think she’s even breathing, she- she feels dizzy, but not in the way from suffocation, what’s going _on-?_

“Who are you?” demands the woman, crooking her fingers and pulling April through the air to be even closer. The woman’s eyes shine with unearthly power, forbidding and dangerous as her hair writhes like thin red snakes. “Why’re you disguising yourself as a human? What do you _want?”_

April can’t speak, mouth struggling to even move around silent words.

The woman’s lips twist in a snarl, and her hand shoots out to touch April’s forehead. Ice cold fingers meet April’s skin and it’s like the world inverts.

A kaleidoscope of colors overtakes her, sensations of flying and falling and someone’s touch encircling her whole being. It’s overwhelming, all-consuming- April can’t fight back at all, trapped in a vice like grip and forced to let a foreign energy examine every piece of herself. Then, it all suddenly snaps back to reality, and April finds herself being lowered to the floor. She shudders, feeling violated, taking a fearful step backwards.

“…Oh,” says the woman, staring at her with a different expression. The glow in her eyes fades away, revealing blue eyes that seem older than she looks. “Sorry, you’re not- I thought you might be- sorry. I’ve… had some bad experiences with people entering my mind without my permission. I didn’t know you were- um, just lost?”

April opens and closes her mouth uselessly, sound still not coming from her throat, no matter how much she strains her voice box to produce the angry words she wants it to.

“Sorry- right, here, lemme just-” The woman touches April’s forehead again, and the blurriness and dizziness to her head pops like a bubble.

“- _What the fuck is going on?”_ April gasps, grateful to be able to speak again.

“I think you wandered away from where you should be,” says the woman calmly. She offers a tired smile. “Don’t worry. It’s an easy fix. And given the friends you hang out with… this is gonna seem like a midafternoon stroll, eventually.”

April grasps at straws, trying to make sense of things. “I- excuse me, that answers _nothing._ Who are you? _Where am I?_ What do you even mean?!”

“I think you’ll have an easier time than we did, though,” the woman continues, like she hasn’t even heard April. “Your friends… they seem happier, I think. All of you do.”

“You-” April tries to grab the woman’s shoulders and demand explanation to all this, but her hands go _right through_. She yelps and backpedals, clutching her hands to her chest.

“You’re not really here,” says the woman, sounding a little apologetic as well as amused at April horror. “I dunno how you managed to astral project into a different dimension without powers, but… with the boys, anything is possible, isn’t it?”

“Astral pr- I’m _what?_ What the fuck is going on here?!”

“Nothing, really,” says the woman, smiling sadly and stretching a scar that nicks the left of her lip. “Just a bit of bad luck on your end.”

April then hears voices nearby, on the other side of the paper walls nearby- lots of voices, all of them coming closer- she turns to ask who those people are, but finds her eyes being covered by a hand again.

“Go home,” says the woman, pressure building against April’s skin from her palm, “this is no place for you or anyone of your family.”

April feels the pressure hit her like something physical, and she falls backwards.

She opens her eyes, breathlessly gasping as she clutches at the carpet she’s lying on. The ceiling of the game room greets her, familiar as ever. The flashing lights of nearby game cabinets and noise of two or more of the brothers talking rouses her further, and April sits up gingerly, blanket sliding off her.

“Oh, hey,” Leo says, looking down at her from the couch she’s beside. His sword rests against the arm of the couch, right next to where April’s head had been on a pillow. “You get a good nap? I know those finals have been killin’ ya.”

“…I had a weird dream,” April says, slowly raising a hand to her forehead. The skin feels cold, and her skull feels like it’s got cotton in it. She rubs her eyes, the sensations slowly fading away.

“What kind of weird dream?” Leo asks, lowering his Nintendo.

“Just… a really weird dream.” April shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know what it was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rottmnt leo can recognize himself in the last chapter bc mutant turtles are p obvious. rottmnt april on the other hand? nah,. if i met an alt version of myself that was white, i wouldn't recognize them either.

**Author's Note:**

> me and my buddy rhi have a pretty firm headcanon that the rottmnt brothers have weird grippy parrot feet. like, yall seen how those feeties are designed? it makes perfect sense for me to write leo and mikey climbing on the ceiling. also because i just really wanted to.
> 
> and i think i got the idea for this from the concept of rottmnt leo's sword (which messes with dimensions) might let him have dreams of other dimensions. don't quote me on that idea, i had it way late at night.
> 
> uhhhhh wish this'd been longer, but i'm tired as shit lately from new meds. hope you enjoyed, and if you're from the discord, thanks for clicking on the link to this ficlet.


End file.
